How would this be able to land in the event of complete electrical failure? A helicopter is able to glide by twisting the rotor blades but this would just fall like a brick. I would be really scared to be in that.
>How would this be able to land in the event of complete electrical failure?
this is why you'd have 2 independent set of rotors/motors and batteries (or other source of power). Each set alone at maximum power should allow for controlled descent. It may happen that in this "emergency" mode it can work only for limited time and become non-serviceable afterward, like the battery discharges beyond repair, etc...
Helicopters obviously don't have such an option so the engine cutting off puts you on a brink of catastrophe and requires highly trained pilot to avoid it. Electrically driven multi-rotors are completely different in that regard. With just a DMV driver license your grandma would be able to land one with half rotors off.
There are so many planes that cannot land in the event of complete electrical failure ... starting with every last modern passenger airliner. There the problem is that human strength is not enough to control flaps and hydraulics are too heavy (translation: possible but too expensive), but if the electrical infrastructure completely fails ... it's over. Plane will lose control, rapidly spin out of control and dive chaotically into the scenery.
The Volocopter has a ballistic rescue parachute. A failure of a few of the 18 rotors/engines is not a problem and can be compensated; complete electrical failure (or failure of more than a few) would require deployment of the parachute.
On the other hand, mechanically a multicopter is much simpler than your average heli (rigid rotors, i.e. no collective/cyclic/swashplate/articulation, no anti-torque, no gearbox, etc.) - so I'm wondering what the relative safety turns out to be.
The ballistic rescue parachute is attached to the top of the drone. It's basically just a big red button that you have to press to deploy (and even that could maybe be automated).
this is why you'd have 2 independent set of rotors/motors and batteries (or other source of power). Each set alone at maximum power should allow for controlled descent. It may happen that in this "emergency" mode it can work only for limited time and become non-serviceable afterward, like the battery discharges beyond repair, etc...
Helicopters obviously don't have such an option so the engine cutting off puts you on a brink of catastrophe and requires highly trained pilot to avoid it. Electrically driven multi-rotors are completely different in that regard. With just a DMV driver license your grandma would be able to land one with half rotors off.